Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm 4.0-5.6

The M.Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm 4.0-5.6 (35mm equivalent focal length: 18-36mm) expands the Micro FourThirds lens system, an ultra wide-angle zoom with a viewing angle of 100° - 62°. The lens sets a new standard in ultra compact design with its a weight of only 5.5 ounces and a total length of 1.95 inches, made possible through the retractable parking mechanism. Compared with the Olympus FourThirds system ultra wide-angle zoom -- the Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm 4.0-5.6 -- the volume has been reduced by 50% and the weight also by 40%. The M.Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm offers not only amazing compactness, but also excellent image quality. You can easily create powerful effects of perspective or use it for excellent close-up shooting with a minimum distance of 9.84 inches from the lens front.

Olympus MSC (Movie and Still Compatible) Micro Four Thirds lenses are the perfect choice for capturing amazing still photography and HD video with your Olympus PEN. A super-fast, smooth autofocus makes sure your subject is always the star and the silent focusing motor ensures pristine sound for your biggest productions.

Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm 4.0-5.6 Key Features

Box Contents:

M.Zuiko Digital ED 9-18mm 4.0-5.6 Lens

Lens Cap LC-52C

Lens Rear Cap LR-2

Instruction Manual

Warranty Card

Outstandingly Compact 2x Ultra Wide-Angle Zoom Lens

This 35mm equivalent 9 - 36mm ultra wide-angle zoom, 2.22 x 1.95 inches, weighing only 5.5 ounces, sets a new standard in ultra compact design. The Micro Four Thirds System breakthrough design allows dramatic reduction in camera size. The elimination of the mirror box paves the way for a cascade of size reductions, including cutting the size of the flange back in half (relative to the Four Thirds System) and reducing the lens mount diameter by about 6 mm, which in turn makes it possible to reduce the size of the lens itself. And all of this has been achieved without reducing the size of the sensor itself, assuring the same superior picture quality that is provided by the Four Thirds System.

Movie and Still Compatible Lens With Exceptionally Fast And Nearly Silent Inner-Focusing Mechanism

While an ordinary lens element utilizes part of the spherical surface, the aspherical lens element utilizes part of a surface that is curved but not spherical. This allows a single lens element to correct effectively the aberrations that are often hard to correct with spherical lens elements.

Two DSA (Dual Super Aspherical) Lens Elements

A double-side aspherical lens with a large difference in thickness between the center and periphery is called a DSA (Dual Super Aspherical) lens. Because this lens can simultaneously offer both excellent refractivity and aberration correction what would previously have required a number of different lens elements to achieve, the lens size can be reduced. The reduced number of lens elements also helps improve image clarity, as well as preventing ghosts and flares.

One HR (High-Refractivity) Lens Element

A lens element made of optical glass with high refractivity is called an HR lens. This lens is excellent at correcting spherical aberrations and allows the lens size to be reduced without degrading imaging performance.

One ED Glass Lens Element

ED lens elements are used to correct the color blurring noticeable when telephoto lenses are extended to their maximum focal length. Compared to an ordinary optical glass lens, the ED (Extra-low Dispersion) glass lens presents extremely small changes in refractivity in the wavelengths from blue to red. It can improve the imaging performance of lenses by reducing chromatic aberration (a phenomenon caused by the dispersion of light produced by deviation of the focusing point due to color differences) that causes color fringing or contrast degradation.

Zuiko Digital lenses are designed to focus light straight into an imager's pixel wells, to fill every pixel consistently. It's optical technology that delivers an image filled from center to edge with rich, accurate color, high contrast and subtle gradation. Designed exclusively for digital photography, Zuiko Digital lenses provide a level of precision that's simply unattainable from a digital body using a traditional 35mm film lens.

Zuiko lenses feature a near telecentric design that ensures that the light hits the photodiodes at right angles, thus avoiding the problem of blurring at the edges of the image, or corner shading, which often occurs when using lenses originally designed for 35mm film cameras. Combined with the high resolution of Olympus Zuiko Digital lenses, this lens design exploits the full potential of the digital camera image sensors. The result is clear photos with strong colors and sharp contrasts right to the edges of the image. The telecentricity made possible by the digital-dedicated design of the Four Thirds System has been inherited by the Micro Four Thirds System, further ensuring the high picture quality performance of the system.

Smart System

M.Zuiko Digital lenses communicate image information directly to the Olympus E-System Digital SLR for a level of exposure accuracy that's beyond the capabilities of a passive lens. Two signal pins have been added to enable information exchange between the camera body and lens, and allow various extensions to be adopted in the future.